Sweet Starfire Read Online Free PDF Page B

he told her.
    She glanced at him in surprise as she began pulling the beautifully bound volumes from the autostorage unit beside the bed. “Oh, no, there couldn’t possibly be enough room. I have a separate pack for them.”
    “I could get a couple hundred data slips in here,” he assured her before glancing over and seeing what she was doing. “Saints in hell! Those aren’t slips. They’re books. Real books.”
    “Of course.” She touched one of the handworked covers reverently. “No information storage system ever invented can compare aesthetically with a genuine book. They are such beautiful things.”
    It was Severance’s turn to look shocked. “They must weigh as much as an exploroprobe. What do you think Severance Pay is, a cargo freighter? Leave ‘em here. I just arranged for a crate of Rose ale to be put on board. There isn’t room for your damn books.”
    Cidra clutched the volume she was holding to her breast. “If the books stay behind, then I stay too.”
    Severance lifted his eyes beseechingly. “I knew I was going to regret this. The Renaissance sinkswamps will freeze before I make a mistake like this again. All right, all right, bring the damn books. But move, will you? I’ve got a hot run, and it’s COD .”
    “What’s that mean?” Cidra asked, hastily placing the books in a travel pack.
    “It means,” Severance said as he locked the pack he had just finished stuffing with delicate clothing, “that I don’t get paid unless the shipment gets delivered on time. Credit on Delivery. I don’t intend to make the run to Renaissance for free, so let’s get going. Here, you take the robes. They’re a lot lighter. Let me have those damn books. Anything else?”
    “No, that’s everything.” She edged around Scates’s prone body. “You’re sure he’ll be all right?”
    “Unfortunately yes. Now just act normal out in the hall, understand? Pretend you’ve changed your mind about staying here and have agreed to spend the night with me. You’ve paid for the room?”
    Cidra nodded and then asked, “It’s true, isn’t it?”
    “What’s true?” Severance closed the door and set the locks. Then he shouldered the travel pack and started down the hall, Cidra following close behind.
    “Wolves think constantly about sex. It’s what that man Scales wanted from me, and it is the excuse you think the hotel security system will accept for our unexpected departure.”
    “By now you ought to have learned for yourself that Wolves aren’t nearly as elevated in their thinking as your friends back home in Clementia.”
    “It’s not a question of refined or elevated thinking,” she responded seriously as he herded her out of the hotel lobby and onto the glowing sidewalk. “It’s a matter of the relative importance of the subject to an individual. Sex is obviously a great deal more important to Wolves than to Harmonics.”
    Severance opened the panel of a waiting runner and stuffed Cidra and her packs inside. Then he slid in beside her and punched in their destination. When he was finished, he leaned back in his characteristic lounging fashion and folded his arms across his chest. “Maybe if sex were a little more important to Harmonics, they would be able to increase their birthrate. Everyone knows they don’t produce enough children to keep up their population. If it weren’t for the random occurrence of natural Harmonics among the Wolves, there probably wouldn’t be enough Saints to keep Clementia running.”
    “The system works fine the way it is,” Cidra told him firmly. “It’s good to have the new blood constantly being introduced into the Harmonic society.”

    “If everything is so great in Clementia, what are you doing here?”

    She looked out the runner’s diazite window, staring at the passing town, which had been founded according to a careful plan but had since grown into an eclectic and sprawling mix of architectural styles on meandering streets. The glow from the